According to Bennett

The Story According to Bennett …parts of it at least:

Once the fire was started, Mirette prepared some food, and Iehron walked a perimeter around the clearing to check if there were any signs of dangerous creatures.

"Did you find anything?" Mirette nervously asked when Iehron returned, fearful of what sort of things could be found in the forest.

"Nothing," Iehron replied. "We should be fine here."

"What about when we're asleep?" asked Mirette. "Couldn't any creature wandering by decide to make a snack out of us?"

"I imagine you'll wake up after the first bite," Iehron said with a joking smile.

Mirette didn't like the joke, and the look of trepidation on her face only deepened.

"Don't worry," Iehron quickly followed up. "The fire will keep critters away. But as an herbalist, shouldn't you know various ways of keeping animals away with different plants?"

"Oh, you're right!" Mirette replied, her eyes lighting up as the fear dissipated. "I had forgotten, but I do have some berries that will work perfectly."

Digging through her pack, she produced a small bag of red berries. She crushed one and waved it in front of Iehron's nose. He started to gag.

"What is that?!" Iehron coughed, attempting to regain control of his convulsing esophagus.

"This is the Muck Berry," said Mirette. "No animal ever eats it because of its awful smell and taste. If I smear some of these berries around our camp, no animal will come near us."

The following morning, as Iehron opened his heavy eyes and waited for the blurry images to focus into something recognizable, he spotted something he certainly did not recognize. There was sitting on his stomach what appeared to be some sort of chimera wannabe in the form of a rabbit head grafted to the body of what would be a fat, short snake. Rather than a rabbit head on a snake body, it looked more like a rabbit wearing a snake suit from the neck down.

At first Iehron thought he was not truly awake and was dreaming up random things. Or perhaps his eyes had not fully adjusted, and his mind  was having fun trying to interpret the fuzzy images it was receiving. Then the rabbit-snake thing hissed at him, revealing rabbit teeth and a snake tongue. He was not dreaming, and he was seeing clearly.

A tilt of Iehron's head in both directions showed there were several of the rabbit-snakes all around besides the one sitting on him. Mirette was also surrounded by the creatures, but she did not seem to be awake yet. Or, more correctly, Iehron assumed she was not awake since he didn't hear any screaming.

A point of clarification: rabbit-snakes were not common throughout the world. Therefore, this was quite a strange sight to Iehron as it would have been to anyone. Snake-rabbits were also not common. Squirrel-snakes did not exist at all. Mouse-snakes were out of the question and shall never be mentioned again.

Iehron raised a hand to swat the little beast away, but the fierce creature with its pointy teeth suddenly bit down into him. His vision began to swirl like a muddy puddle stirred with a stick. And then came blackness.

When Iehron awoke again, he found a rabbit-snake was still sitting on his stomach. However, he was no longer in the forest. His clearing vision revealed he was in a cabin of some sort.

The rabbit-snake hissed again.

Mirette's hand then reached over and tapped the critter on the head as she said, "Now, now, don't be rude."

The critter then closed its mouth and hopped to the ground.

Iehron sat up and saw Mirette in the corner sitting on a stool made of old tree branches. Five or six of the rabbit-snakes were hopping gleefully up and down on her head and legs - how they were hopping with stumpy snake bodies is irrelevant.

"Aren't these things cute?" Mirette said with a warm smile. "Their bodies are a bit odd, but their fuzzy little faces are adorable."

Iehron was more concerned about his location than the fuzzy little faces. The cabin appeared to be less constructed than formed. It almost looked like they were inside an enormous hollow tree.

"Where are we?" asked Iehron.

Before Mirette could answer, the door to the room flung open, and in walked a crazy old wizard who specialized in forest magic. His name was Nemoris. He would contest the "crazy" description, insisting that dedicating one's self wholly to an intellectual and scholastic pursuit should be commended and not labeled as lunacy. But he was crazy.

"You have trespassed in my forest!" Nemoris complained. "Didn't you see the warning signs?!"

"No," said Iehron. "There were no signs when we approached."

"Precisely!" Nemoris shouted with an emphatic hand raised in the air. "No one dares to defile my forest with ugly signs. You must be punished."

All of the rabbit-snakes began hissing at Iehron.

"Please, sir," Mirette interrupted, "we did not mean to trespass. This is all a mistake."

The old, crazy, and likely lonely wizard turned to Mirette with a smile and said, "Do not worry my dear, a respectful herbalist like yourself is always welcome to enjoy the nature of my forest."

This made Iehron wonder if the wizard knew how much the forest terrified Mirette.

Nemoris then whipped around toward Iehron with one of those mean and ugly old person expressions. You know the kind. "But this one has the faint smell of a spray beast. You are an Ohtar."

"And proud of it," Iehron snapped back.

"Bah!" Nemoris shouted. He seemed to enjoy shouting. "All you know is death. You could never appreciate my forest."

"I've only been an Ohtar for a week," said Iehron. "I've never killed anyone."

Nemoris rubbed his chin while pointing his cranky eyes at Iehron's. Then Nemoris open his eyes wide with a smile that made even Mirette nervous and shouted, "I have it! I know your punishment. You shall become my student."

"Pardon?" said Iehron, understandably confused by the wizard's sudden choice of punishments. "I'm really not interested-"

"You listen here!" Nemoris exclaimed with another emphatic hand this time pointing at Iehron. "You're an Ohtar and know how to use powerful magic, yes? Then you will learn my magic. I've spent my life developing all these wondrous nature spells, and someone is going to learn them too. I'm getting old and someone should carry on my knowledge."

"Getting old?" Iehron thought to himself, noting Nemoris' scraggy white beard that would have reached the floor if it didn't have various twigs and sticks twisted up in it.

"I would love to learn some nature magic!" said Mirette as she lightly tossed a rabbit-snake up and down in her hands.

"Splendid," said Nemoris, smiling at Mirette. The smile vanished as he switched back to Iehron. "What is your decision? Be my student, or have a few more doses of rabbit-snake venom."

Several thoughts went through Iehron's mind. The first was how he could potentially conjure enough magical power in his hands to send the old curmudgeon to the grave he had somehow avoided for so long before the wizard or critters had time to react. The second was that learning some nature spells might prove useful in the future, maybe. Thoughts three through seven were very similar to thought one.

Iehron eventually decided there was no need for bloodshed, and he might as well see what sort of magic the wizard was capable of.

"I'll be your student," said Iehron, half regretting the words as they escaped his mouth.